Alice Feeney - I Know Who You Are

I’m aware of other people in the lift around us, aware of being watched. With each floor we pass I feel more anxious about our final destination. I always knew this was going to happen, even the first time we met. My heart changes speed inside my ears, I’m breathing too fast and I worry that he can tell how scared I am of what we’re about to do. His hand brushes mine as we step out on to the seventh floor, by accident I think. I wonder if he might hold it, but he doesn’t. He is not here to offer romance. That isn’t what this is and we both know that.

He slots the key card into the door, and for a moment I think it won’t work. Then I hope it won’t, something to buy me just a little bit more time. I don’t want to do this, which makes me wonder why I am. I seem to have spent my life doing things I don’t want to.

Inside the room, he takes off his jacket, flinging it onto the bed, as though he is angry with me, as though I have done something wrong. His handsome face turns to look in my direction, his features twisted into something resembling hate and disgust, as though he is mirroring my own thoughts about myself in this moment, in this room.

‘I think we need to have a talk, don’t you? I’m married.’ His final two words are like an accusation.

‘I know,’ I whisper.

He takes a step closer. ‘And I love my wife.’

‘I know.’ I’m not here for his love, she can keep that. I look away, but he takes my face in his hands and kisses me. I stand perfectly still, as though I don’t know what to do, and for a moment I worry that I can’t remember how. He is so gentle at first, careful, as though worried he might break me. I close my eyes – it’s easier to do this with them closed – and I kiss him back. He changes gear faster than I was anticipating, his hands sliding down from my cheeks, to my neck, to the dress covering my breasts, his fingertips tracing the outline of my bra beneath the thin cotton. He stops and pulls away.

‘Fuck. What the fuck am I doing?’

I try to remember how to breathe.

‘I know, I’m sorry,’ I reply, as though this were all my fault.

‘It’s like you’re inside my head.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I say again. ‘I think about you all the time. I know I shouldn’t, and I promise I’ve tried so hard not to, but I can’t help it—’ My eyes fill with tears. He’s at least ten years older than me, and I feel like an inexperienced child.

‘It’s okay. This, whatever this is, is not your fault. I think about you too.’

I stop crying when he says that, as though the latest sentence to have spilled from his mouth changes everything. He lifts my chin, turning my face to look up at his own, which my eyes search, trying to determine whether there is any truth in his words. Then I reach up to kiss him, my eyes offering an unspoken invitation, and this time, he doesn’t hesitate. This time, our lives outside of this moment are buried and forgotten.

Jack’s hands move down to the front of my dress, expert fingers removing me from it, revealing the black lace of my bra underneath. He lifts me onto the desk, knocking the room-service menu and hotel phone to the floor. Before I know what is happening, he’s on top of me, pinning my arms down, forcing his body between my legs.

‘And, cut,’ says the director. ‘Thanks, guys, I think we got it.’

Galway, 1987

Maggie held my hand all the way back to the cottage on the seafront. She held it so tight that it hurt a little bit some of the time. I think she was just afraid I might run away again, and that a bad person might find me like she said. But the only running I did was to keep up with her walking. She’s a fast walker and I’m tired now. She kept looking around the whole time, as though she was scared, but we didn’t pass any other people at all along the back streets, good or bad.

The cottage is very pretty, just like Maggie. It has a smart blue door and white bricks – it’s nothing like our house at home. She doesn’t have much stuff, and when I ask why not, she says this is just a holiday cottage. I’ve never been on holiday, so that’s why I didn’t know about things like that. She’s busy putting clothes in a suitcase now, and just when I think she might call the police, she decides to make us some tea and a snack instead, which is nice. On the walk here I told her all about how my brother said we can’t afford to eat, so she probably thinks I’m hungry.

‘Would you like a slice of gingerbread cake?’ she asks from the little kitchen. I’m sitting in the biggest armchair I’ve ever seen. I had to climb it just to sit on it, like a mountain made of cushions.

‘Yes,’ I say, feeling pleased with myself, sitting in the nice chair about to eat cake with the nice lady.

She appears in the doorway. The smile that was always on her face before, has vanished.

‘Yes, what?’

I don’t know what she means at first, but then I have an idea. ‘Yes, please?’ Her smile comes back and I am glad.

She puts the cake down in front of me, along with a glass of milk, then puts on the television for me to watch while she goes to use the phone in the other room. I thought she had forgotten about calling the police, and now I feel sad. I like it here, and I want to stay a bit longer. I can’t hear what she is saying over the noise of Zig and Zag on the TV – she’s turned the volume up very loud. When I’ve finished the cake I lick my fingers, then I drink the milk. It tastes chalky but I’m thirsty, so I finish the whole glass anyway.

I feel sleepy when she comes back in the room.

‘Now then, I’ve spoken to your daddy, and I’m afraid he says that what your brother told you is true: there isn’t enough food for you at home any more. I don’t want you to start your worrying again, so I’ve said to your daddy that you can stay here with me for a few days, and then I’ll take you back home once he’s sorted himself out. Does that sound grand?’

I think about the TV, and the cake, and the comfy chair. I think it might be nice to stay here for a little while, even though I will miss my brother a lot and my daddy a bit.

‘Yes,’ I say.

‘Yes, what?’

‘Yes … please … and thank you.’

It’s only when she leaves the room again that I wonder how she spoke to my daddy when we don’t have a phone at home.

London, 2017

I check my phone again before getting out of the car. I’ve tried to call my agent three times now, but it just keeps going to voicemail. I even called the office, but his assistant said Tony was unavailable, and she used that tone people reserve for when they know something you don’t. Or perhaps I’m just being paranoid. With everything else that is happening, I suppose that’s possible. I’ll try again tomorrow.

The house is in complete darkness as I trudge up the path. I keep thinking about Jack and the way he kissed me on set. It felt so … real. I wear the idea of him like a blanket and it makes me feel safe and warm, the cloak of fantasy always more reliable than cold reality. But lust is only ever a temporary cure for loneliness. I close the front door behind me, leaving longing back in the shadows, out on the street. I switch on the lights of real life, finding them a little bright; they permit me to see more than I want to. The house is too quiet and too empty, like a discarded shell.

My husband is still gone.

I’m instantly dragged back in time, reliving the precise moment when his jealousy climaxed and my patience expired, generating the perfect marital storm.

I remember what he did to me. I remember everything that happened that night.

It’s a strange feeling, when buried memories float to the surface without warning. Like having all the air sucked out of your lungs, then being dropped from a great height; the perpetual sense of falling combined with the unavoidable knowledge that you’re going to hit something hard.